


in another time

by Rupzydaisy



Series: the haruspices sing on [8]
Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Family, Happy Ending, Mild Angst, Second Chances, Time Travel Fix-It, masriel, soft masriel, surprise twist on Edward's death, the chasm takes them back to just after Lyra's birth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22617697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rupzydaisy/pseuds/Rupzydaisy
Summary: Marisa wakes up in her bed beside Edward and has to stifle a scream.She breathes into the dark, feeling the cold sweat on her skin slowly dry. It takes a long time for her shallow breaths to even out, and even longer to work her way out of the terrible feeling that had sunk itself into her.Her fall had been halted, not by death or a sharp rock jutting out of the chasm, but by the soft mattress underneath her back. The roar of whistling wind had been replaced by the frantic beating of her heart and Edward's snoring. When she finally feels all of her wits return to her, and still nothing makes sense, she does the only thing she can think of and rolls out of the bed. Careful not to wake her sleeping, still breathing, husband, Marisa picks up her monkey and then hightails it to Asriel’s house in the Fens, her heart and hands searching for one and only thing; Lyra.
Relationships: Edward Coulter/Marisa Coulter, Lord Asriel & Lyra Belacqua, Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter, Lyra Belacqua & Marisa Coulter
Series: the haruspices sing on [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1609966
Comments: 26
Kudos: 124





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> cleaned up one of the mini-fics I posted on tumblr, and now i'm going to give it a part two.  
> prompt was: reincarnation or time loop or OOOOH TIME TRAVEL SCENARIOS - and I went with time travel  
> also, could be seen as a follow on from 'of mustard-seeds and heart secrets'

Marisa wakes up in her bed beside Edward and has to stifle a scream. 

She breathes into the dark, feeling the cold sweat on her skin slowly dry. It takes a long time for her shallow breaths to even out, and even longer to work her way out of the terrible feeling that had sunk itself into her. 

Her fall had been halted, not by death or a sharp rock jutting out of the chasm, but by the soft mattress underneath her back. The roar of whistling wind had been replaced by the frantic beating of her heart and Edward's snoring. When she finally feels all of her wits return to her, and still nothing makes sense, she does the only thing she can think of and rolls out of the bed. Careful not to wake her sleeping, still breathing, husband, Marisa picks up her monkey and then hightails it to Asriel’s house in the Fens, her heart and hands searching for one and only thing; Lyra. 

The Gyptian midwife ran off as soon as she had opened the front door to her demands and pounding fists. When she returns, she has Asriel in tow. The sight of him standing young and whole in front of her shakes Marisa more than she expected. Her heart beats double time from a mere glance at him, and her knees threaten to buckle. 

But she already knew what endlessly falling felt like, and she braced herself from the longing to wrap her arms around him because she had her daughter in her arms. So she remained swaying there, looking down at Lyra, whispering to her all the things she wanted to, trying her best to ignore Asriel pacing breathlessly behind her. 

“I woke up this morning, in my own bed, a younger man. Alive! I cannot explain it, but I went for a walk and everything appears as it did, all those years ago. Or should I say all these years ago.”

Marisa doesn’t turn to face him or give any indication she is listening, but her daemon looks back and forth between her and Asriel, golden tail twitching. Unlike her, he wastes no time in bounding towards Stelmaria as she moved past Asriel’s legs, and they embrace, as tight as they had been while falling, only now, certain death is nothing but a nightmare. 

“We must have fallen through time itself! Dust connects consciousness, so perhaps there is some real explanation to it all…but frankly, my love it’s beyond me." 

He waffles on and on, pacing and turning and she can feel him looking at her, but she can’t tear her eyes away from her daughter’s face. 

”…another chance, to make other choices! It’s do-able, Marisa, I truly believe it. What do you say?“

Then he comes to stand in front of her, taking hold of her shoulders and finally she has to take her eyes off Lyra with the greatest of reluctance. 

She looks up at him with wide eyes and spits back, "What? After knowing the consequences? Would you choose this _again_.”

“This? Us?" 

But Marisa turns away from his stunned expression shaking her head. The feeling of panic she had woken up with lingered in her blood and she knew she had to fight against it with all her might. But there’s a tiredness from all revelations she had felt, about seeing herself through the Metatron’s eyes, through Asriel’s eyes. 

Her heart feels like it's been cracked open. Within it, the insignificant mustard-seed belonging to Lyra threatens to grow and grow. 

"Don’t look at me like that, Asriel.”

He circles around to face her again, looking horrified, but then Stelmaria knocks into his leg and it sheds off him, leaving only his solid resolution behind. It’s a frightening sight because he still believes in things she can’t dare to, always daring to push impossible boundaries. 

“Don’t act like you won’t, my love. I walked into this the first time with my eyes open, don’t demean me by thinking anything else." 

She barely breathes and, as always, he takes it as an invitation to go on. "I knew the consequences, perhaps not exactly how far the wounds would cut, but my eyes were open when we began the affair. Your feminine insecurities-”

The monkey screeches loud and shrill, and something inside Marisa snaps, and although she doesn’t raise her voice to wake her sleeping daughter, her words are as sharp as ever. “I was ruined! Your scholarly exile allowed you to continue your work. You kept your title, and somehow still managed to use that strange persuasive power that can make other men bend to your will-”

“Marisa I-”

“No. No! I can do this right! I will raise her as Edward’s own. I can do it. She was extraordinary, and she can be again.”

Asriel's hands reach out for her again, and she draws away, feet edging back across the floorboards. “Don’t waste this, we have a chance.”

“A chance for what exactly?" Her frustration grows thicker until she can't hold it back any longer.

"You were a heretic, and it only brought disgrace and bitterness to your door. You aimed to topple the Clouded Mountain of all things! Your desire to reorder worlds brought war to all of them. You would bring that here, to us?”

“If you want to draw comparisons, you were no saint either, Marisa.” He was quick to remind her, and the accusation didn’t sting because it was true. “But I would do it all again for you. For her. We died for her, my love, together. I won’t forget it, and neither should you." 

With a shake of his head, Asriel steps closer until he can embrace both Marisa and his daughter. When he looks down into the small, flushed cheeks and the tiny leopard cub daemon tucked inside her blanket, there is an inexplicable warmth in his expression she had never seen before. But regardless of that she recognised it, because she felt it too. 

"You and I have done things in the past and will inevitably do things in the future that will blacken our hearts.” 

He lets out a little chuckle and the sound transports her back years, or rather months. In her former life she had fallen hard and fast with her immoral affair and her desire to prove herself within the Magisterium catapulting her into children's nightmares. Her daemon whimpers quietly by her knee, and for once the urge to slap him for displaying her inner turmoil is overcome by the weight of the regrets she had carried for so long. 

She tilts her head as Asriel's hands brush against her wet cheeks, wiping the silent tears away. “Dust isn’t sin, but we have enough of that to last lifetimes."

"We were too late in our first life but if we can help her better than we did before, then I will die remorseless and at peace, even if it ends with dragging the Metatron down that chasm again.”

Marisa sucks in a breath, wavering on the spot while Stelmaria speaks to her daemon, soft and with love. She feels the tug on her own heart. It is a call to trust, a leap of faith she never had the courage to commit until she had stood on the lip of that chasm and stared down at Asriel’s broken body clinging to the first angel.

When she finally opens her mouth to speak, her voice is resigned but firm. “You think we’re headed to the same future." 

"I’ve sent word to Ruta Skadi, and asked for more information. I suspect fate has a method to the madness, but I’ll take that risk, if I have you by my side. You want to do right by her, and I understand that. I want more for her, her happiness...yours.”

“I-” 

Marisa cut herself off and instead of trying to find the words, leans up to press her lips to his, sealing her wordless promise with a forceful kiss. 

He had once invited her to join him, to walk with him into a new world and work together. She had turned him down then partially out of fear and pride, but also because she had felt a much stronger pull from the rediscovered love for her daughter. 

Now, in this second life, they were aligned forever, with Lyra snoring gently in their arms. Marisa's heart melts a little further from the sight of her.

_How that little mustard-seed had grown._

“We could change it all, for her.” Asriel says, and just like that, her fear slips away.

She breathes out softly as an electrifying feeling swept over her, strengthening her own resolve; turning it from mere blood to unshatterable marble. “Together, we can do things better."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edward's Death - Take 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt 5 from the list i'm slowly working my way through on tumblr:  
> dramatically saving each other from certain death or barely surviving something that almost makes the other break down and just smirking wearily and mumbling flippant smartass remarks to HIDE THE DEPTH OF THEIR FEELINGS

When Marisa heads back to London it's not with empty arms and a heavy heart as it was the first time around, but she still knows she has to plan and prepare some way in which she can raise her own child with Asriel. There was time, and the secret wasn’t out. It gave her hope. 

The airship gently cuts through the clouds and within the machinations of her thoughts, ideas flicker and die. None of them were anything she hadn't done before. Her daemon sits beside her, idly plucking at the seat as she goes through the list, pausing or shaking his head at the more inappropriately vicious ones. He too was invested in it all, having had a brief taste of the possible future, before leaping down after Stelmaria and ripping out the Metatron’s hair and feathers alike with an unrestrained violence she had never experienced until then.

Back in London, Marisa steps out into society again and works harder to keep eyes on her rather than Edward. Instead of staying away from their eager eyes and curious looks, she takes little Lyra on outings. For each of them, she dresses her up in the most _darling_ outfits and lets other women coo over her chubby cheeks and small fingers while she fills teacups and tries not to scream. 

Marisa feels like she could swing things her way when she drops hints about her husband's stress and paranoia while laughing away concern, or whenever she feels someone's gaze flickering between her and her small, fragile daughter in her arms. Edward draws his own fair share of glances with his tired face and unconcealed irritation over Lyra’s constant crying whenever she’s in his arms.

Despite feeling pinned like a dead butterfly under their eyes, it still feels like there's a lightness awaiting her. She had spent so long in her first life pushing away the things she believed she couldn't have, only now having those possibilities dangled in front of her, seemingly in her grasp, her full confidence had returned. The fear of becoming a social pariah and having to piously claw her way up through the Magisterium in order to make amends when she was the one to have suffered the most, had faded. 

But it's not meant to be. 

Edward figures it out. 

No matter how much she tried to soothe his worries, it wasn’t enough. Lyra’s daemon curls up around her neck as a snow leopard cub so often, and she cried incessantly whenever he tried to hold her. And just like that Marisa’s fears snap back into place. 

It doesn’t take him long to piece it together and then once she leaves for Oxford, citing a trip to St Sophia’s by feigning a desire to get back to her scholarly work, he follows like a bloodhound on a scent trail. 

She had spent the morning on her alibi, working in St Sophia’s library. Hearing the scuffle of shoes running across the old floors, she cracks her neck and leans back to see a breathless, panicked, Gyptian boy. His message is short and urgent, _Go quick! Go home! He’s here,_ and she had raced back immediately.

There was a heavy, sickening guilt mixed in with her fear out of her willingness to leave Lyra with Asriel that morning. He had tempted her with the idea of publishing new work, and she had liked the sound of it more than she’d care to admit, meaning her morning and most of the afternoon had been spent between the library shelves half constructing a new thesis on Dust and half thinking about the look on Asriel's face.

Now, the charming grin had been utterly wiped out his face as he stood between the Gyptian woman holding his daughter and her husband, who held a revolver. 

When Marisa stands in the open doorway with her heartbeat thudding in her ears like the thunderstorm, she wonders if it would always be like this. That she was always destined to be a fallen woman no matter what she chose. Led by her heart or her head, it was her lot to be tarred and feathered in every life. 

Edward had his back to her, shoulders heaving with rage, and had already dragged the Gyptian woman out of the cupboard. Her own heart raced faster, and she was sure it was ready to leap out of her chest when she saw Asriel’s outstretched, empty hands. His lip bleed freely from where Edward had punched him, and his shotgun lay on the floor in front of her where it had been knocked out of his hands. 

“Coulter, don’t do anything you’ll regret. Put the gun down.” 

Drenched in a cold horror, Marisa stares at their stalemate. Then she finds the strength to edge closer and it dissolves, until she feels as brave as she did the last time her lover had faced certain death. 

Her achingly slow movements are completely ignored by the two men and the sound of her footsteps are masked by her wailing daughter. 

Neither notice when Marisa bends down and picks up the discarded shotgun, fingers drifting across the cool metal barrel. Her heart thrums like a hummingbird’s wings, ready to jump out of her chest and up her throat, and despite it her grip was tight and secure. 

She raises the shotgun. 

Edward only turns when her daemon barrels forward into his, and there is a single high squeal as her monkey-daemon’s bony fingers grip tight around the soft flab about her neck. In a wild frenzy, her daemon growls over and over, pushing and clawing the dog-daemon into submission and Marisa could see Stelmaria itching to join the fight but hesitant about moving from her defensive position at Asriel's side. 

But there's no time for it as Edward turns and sees her. 

There _is_ a look of surprise on his face as he turns towards his wife, and it wavers a little when she shoots without a word of warning. She staggers backwards from the recoil, feeling a pain in her shoulder. His daemon disappears under her monkey's hands in a wisp of golden Dust as his knees, and then body, hits the floor. 

"I thought you were at the college." Asriel tells her weakly as the blood begins to pool on the rug. 

She couldn't keep her lip from curling up in exasperation but her feet move forward instantly, stepping around the body, and Marisa thinks she could scream at him, _I could have lost you both, after all your promises, I could have lost you_. 

But when she looks at him, the words catch in her throat and stick there. The relief in his face is clear to see and she takes heart in knowing he is just as shaken as she was. It’s mixed with the ghost of a pain both of them were unwilling to acknowledge; so instead of moving closer, she rubs at her shoulder and watches him as he looks away. 

"Aren't you glad I left when I did?”

Asriel sighs heavily and falls back to lean against the wall as Stelmaria reared up on her hind paws to lick at his face. Then she collapses down on all fours again, letting Marisa's daemon sink his black fingers into her soft fur, holding her tight just as Marisa finally gives in and rushes to Asriel to do the same. Her lips find his immediately, and she eagerly presses herself against him in a silent promise never to let go. There is a subdued shake of his shoulders and then she feels him tighten his grip around her. Her own relief sweeps her away too, and there’s a surety that her own fingers would leave bruises through his jacket. 

He loosens his hold after a long, breathless moment to mumble into her hair, "A waste of an evening." 

“But not a lifetime. Not if we work this out.” She tells him earnestly, holding on tighter than ever. “You can call yourself a father. _Her_ father.” 

They both freeze in their embrace when Lyra's wail rings out. 

"It's your turn to look after her." Marisa tells him, and for once he has no words of protest, swiftly taking the baby out from the midwife’s trembling hands and cradling her gently. 

After sending the shaken Gyptian woman off home and wiping away the blood from his chin, Asriel settles down in the armchair in the hallway, bouncing Lyra in his lap to keep her from crying again. The adrenaline hadn't yet worked its way out of his blood, and his leg shakes while he tries to pretend he was only stretching it out.

Normally, Marisa would say something. A little crack in his composure was an easy target. But she felt it too.

With a hand on the phone, she kept smoothing down her hair while trying to ignore how her forefinger had a phantom burn from contact with the shotgun's trigger. Her daemon tapped her knee, bringing her back to reality, and she gathers herself together to pick up the receiver and call the police with a feigned quiver in her voice. 

When they come knocking, it's easier for her to explain over hot tea and wrung hands that she was simply defending her own daughter. She is well prepared for it. She lies and lies and lies, but at the heart of it there is some truth; Edward Coulter did arrive at Lord Belacqua's home with murderous intentions, and she feared for her daughter's life.

It falls more or less into place after that. 

With no finger pointing and no blame games, there is also no arrest. Still, she presses a hard kiss to Asriel’s lips while the police wait in the hallway, waiting to take her to the airfield. He lets them both go reluctantly. 

She heads back to London to let events take their course. Her doorbell remains silent after the funeral for a week, allowing her the privacy she needed, and she splits her time learning how to take care of her daughter, attuning herself to her different cries and her daemon’s little mewls. Guests come by with flowers and condolences, and she has to send out for more vases until every counter top is covered in sweet-scented lilies.

They begin a waiting game, held back from each other by the lines they had drawn together in agreement in the few short moments between Edward’s final breath and the police sirens at the door. Marisa hates the separation, hates the idea that Edward still has a hold on her even in death. 

But she sits down after breakfast each morning listening to Lyra’s gurgles and turns the newspapers, watching the ink stains on her life grow and shrink with a brittle patience. To her relief, Asriel uses the lessons learnt in his first life and holds his tongue as accusations fly in the newspapers. The trial happens, as it did before, but Mrs Costa's testimony matches both of theirs. Gyptian woman or no, the jury finds in their favour, and Marisa breathes a sigh of relief in the empty court bathrooms before slipping into an anbaric carriage and rushing home to her daughter. 

Outside of the courtroom, the wives and mothers surrounding the upper echelons of the King’s Court corroborate Mrs Coulter's sympathetic tale and Edward's temperament in his final days. Everyone follows the scandal across national papers and there’s a sudden, pointed scrutiny about how the famed Advisor to the King’s jealousy got the better of him, no matter his wife's indiscretions.

Murderous intentions, it appeared, were quite immoral, and therefore it all gets swept under a rug. 

She books a private room in an airship to Oxford, and Asriel is there to meet her when it lands. Their reunion is sweeter than she imagined. St Sophia’s welcomes her back, and other sympathetic voices are quickly reminded of her intellectual prowess as she starts a new study on Rusakov particles. 

Weeks later, there’s a new routine to her life and it’s neither tolerable or unbearable. Her alarm goes off, Lyra needs feeding, and the sun rises over Oxford and bathes them in a warm, pink-orange glow as it chases the night away. Marisa finally allows herself to feel content with it. 

"It seems, we've come through the worst of the storm." Asriel tells her as he folds up the morning’s paper and reaches across to refill his coffee as Stelmaria stretches out her paws and rolls out her shoulders, sniffing the air.

It was the first issue without a mention of either Coulter, or the incident, for the first time in weeks. She gives a nod of approval, "With our reputations, largely, intact."

Marisa shares his grin and smooths a hand over Lyra's head, the soft blonde curls that were growing longer by the week fascinated her. The strands were lighter than the hair she had cut and kept in the locket, and it made her wonder how it would darken, how her daughter’s first smile would look like, how she’d take her first steps, and say her first words. 

The mustard-seed within her had fully taken root and there were new, green shoots each day. It was a love that she was trying to handle with the greatest care, having already learnt how fragile and breakable it was. 

Once Asriel finishes his coffee, he doesn’t get up to leave as usual, and she watches him out of the corner of her as her daemon openly studies the expressions flashing across his face. She had become used to all of them again. The frown creasing up his brows was coupled with wrinkled nose meant that he was contemplating something, and surprisingly he was keeping his thoughts to himself. 

So she waits, knowing that there was something else on his mind apart from this overwhelming victory, and eventually he composes himself and drags his chair over to hers. When he takes her hands in his and speaks, the love suffused in his voice doesn’t frighten her anymore. 

"What do you think about moving here properly? To Oxford.” Asriel asks tentatively, as if there were still some possibility for her to stand up and walk out. “St Sophia's seem receptive to the direction of your new research."

There is no sting to his quiet proposal and Marisa feels nothing more than sheer delight. Still, she makes a show of considering it before nodding, "I'd like that."


End file.
